The Reds’ loss to the Cubs yesterday officially eliminated the Reds from being able to win the National League Central. Not that the rest of the division is faring much better, by-and-large. The Cards have a 9.5 game lead over the Cubs.

Honestly, doesn’t it get a bit boring being a Cardinals fan after a while? Oh, yeah, we already know it does, evidenced by the fact that 75% of their team blogs closed up after their last WS win.

The Reds’ magic number for wildcard elimination is 2. The Reds didn’t do anything to reduce that tonight, though the Rockies might, as they go up against the Giants.

In other news, Brandon Phillips just hit home run number 20 of the season, making him a 20-20-20 man. That’s 20 homers, 20 stolen bases, and 20 doubles. How they decided on that combination of stats, I don’t know. If they chose stolen bases, walks, and ERA instead, Paul Janish would be on the list.

Wednesday the Reds are honoring Dayton Daily News beat writer Hal McCoy, who is retiring after this year. The DDN is footing half the bill for your tickets. No word yet on whether McCoy will be hired by Deadspin.

This photo, by the way, was taken when newspapers were still relevant.

Watching the Reds play the Cubs this weekend, I got to hear the Cubs’ broadcasters talk about the struggles of both of the teams.

One of the comments was about the importance of consistency from the team management. The practical upshot seemed to be that if the Reds wanted to start succeeding again, they’d need to keep Dusty Baker on for many more years.

While I agree that the Reds have had an awful lot of managers lately–this blog has outlasted Dave Miley, Jerry Narron, and Pete Mackanin–I’m not sure that the answer is to give unlimited reign to whatever guy happens to be in the skipper’s chair to fail indefinitely. In fact, I suspect the reason that successful teams tend to have the same manager for many years is because they have a manager whose performance merits keeping him around for many years.

What I wouldn’t give for one of those.

I got this email from MLB today. I’m not entirely sure what it has to do with baseball, at least what it has to do specifically with baseball, but, being generally pro-veteran myself, I thought I’d share.

Random side note: I had a mild case of PTSD after I had my first wisdom tooth pulled when I was 20. I was unable to sleep due to recurring nightmares about my family tricking me into going back to the dentist. By all accounts, it was an entirely easy procedure, needing nothing more than a shot of Novocain, and if something that insignificant could make me lose sleep, I can’t even imagine what actual war experiences could do.

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1. 14 players appear on the Reds’ list on mlb.com. No other team has so many players. The Mets come close with 13. The Cardinals have 2.
2. 11 different injuried body parts among 14 injured players. They’re going to need to expand the roster if they want to get to all 2001.
3. We saw Jay Bruce play in Indianapolis this weekend. He didn’t exactly astound.
4. This is the first time this sentence has ever been included on this page.
5. Maybe he just needs some privacy.
6. Remember The Trade?
7. Sure, he’ll be back any day now. You don’t need to hear out of both ears to pitch, do you?
8. Heaven help us, that’s NOW.
9. 2010 is going to be another long season.